Sunday, July 31, 2016

Beware---Conversations of One!*

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
Psalm 49:1-11
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

I hear trouble in these texts!

Ecclesiastes:
Vanity, chasing after the wind, it is a bit of a rant…and kind of despairing
The Psalm:
For we see that the wise die also, like the dull and the stupid…they vanish…
…and they leave behind all that STUFF for others to fight over

And Jesus names it straight up in the Gospel
The trouble is GREED
The trouble is Covetousness

There is no warning against
money
wealth
material abundance
OR planning for retirement

Jesus warns against Greed---Covetousness
And it is a passionate warning! 
TAKE CARE (with an exclamation mark)
---BE ON GUARD

It is as if GREED is lying in wait---
ready to pounce when we least expect it---
if we don
’t TAKE CARE!
we just might wake up one morning,
seized and possessed, body mind and Spirit…by GREED!

We can have a greedy appetite for a multitude of things:
money
Honor
fame
sex
compliments
power

But the thing that really makes Greed…Greed
is its appetite
its insatiability
it eats and eats
but remains hungry and unsatisfied
“we can never get enough of what we really don’t need

This Greed
Centers around a false idea of abundance
We get that…We believe that
We believe the moral of today’s parable
We know that TRUE abundance…abundant life
Doesn’t consist in the things
we might be greedy for from time to time

We know False Abundance when we see it.

And we know what Real Abundance looks like
Just these past few Sundays we have heard the Gospel of Luke
Continue to spell it out

Remember the Lawyers Question of a couple weeks ago
What am I to do to gain eternal/abundant life?
Love God
Love Neighbor
Be in relationship with God
Be in relationship with your neighbor

Then the Good Samaritan Story
Tells us who is our neighbor
And how to reach out and love and care and do good
for the neighbor who is a stranger

And then the Martha and Mary story
That answers the first part of the question
How to love God
Well, try sitting at God’s feet
Try letting go of everything you have to do
And listen, rest, be attentive…in God’s presence

And last week was
How to pray
OUR FATHER…not MY Father
GIVE US this day…not GIVE ME
Pray together
Include everyone’s needs

We know this
And we believe this
True abundant life is about
Relationships
And community
And purpose
And meaning
We know
The joy of a great conversation
The satisfaction of doing good for another in need
The wonderful feeling of being accepted into a community

We have experienced
Each in our own way
What Paul describes in the Letter to the Colossians
We have experienced
If just for a short time
The wonder of knowing our lives as
“hidden with Christ in God

So if we know all this
Then, why is there so much trouble?

I have at least part of an answer…
Could it be because the things that make for FALSE abundance
Are so so tangible and accessible
We can produce them or go to walmart and buy them

And all those things that we know make for TRUE abundance
They are so much harder to lay our hands on

Stuff is tangible

Relationships, community, meaning…
They may be far more powerful
But they are not so easily grasped
They take time and effort

Being seduced by the tangible…
That which is within my immediate grasp
Well…it is such a convincing and tempting short cut

I think this truth is evidenced
in the Rich Farmers conversation
That he is having
Not with another human being
Not with his wife, or neighbor, or friend
But with himself
He even has a conversation with himself
within the conversation he’s having with himself
It is really quite funny
Let me do it with a little theatrics:

WHAT…should I do?
For I have no place to store my crops?
Then he said
I will do this:
I WILL pull down MY barns and build larger ones,
And THERE I will store all my grain and my goods.
And I WILL say to my Soul
SOUL!
YOU have ample goods laid up for many years:
Relax
Eat
Drink
Be merry

I can see him…
He is the beginning and the end of his world
He’s all wrapped up…in himself

Now, Hold on to that picture

I went to visit a beautiful 95 year old lady in the hospital Wednesday
I walk in, and went to the far side of the bed where she was facing
I made a brief introduction
And I noticed her hands holding on to two knitting needles
and about 5 inches of…well knitting
we chatted a bit
she told me she knits to keep the muscles in her hands working
after a bit
I leaned in so that she could hear me
And I asked
“What is your secret?
I didn’t provide the to what part…and she didn’t ask
I didn’t really have anything in mind
It just seemed she might have a secret

And she answered...slowly…she was a bit short of breath

Well, I am a child of the depression
But, I remember, we never were hungry
My Daddy was a real good hunter
And fisherman too

Down the road,
there was a family that a few dairy cows…not a farm
Just a few cows
So we had plenty of milk too.

And another family had a large garden
So I guess
It just all worked out.

Since I had this Lukan passage on my mind all week
I heard her answer in relation to this parable
Her telling
Painted a picture in my mind
And it was the complete opposite
of the Farmer and his conversation with himself
He was the beginning and end of his life’s horizon
You can almost see him imploding

But with her story
I could see an unwinding that kept including more and more people
And there was enough
There was real abundance

St Augustine said that
God gave us people to love and things to use
and Sin is when we get the two mixed up

When I catch myself using or manipulating people
and loving things
I am probably
also
Having conversations with myself
I am talking with myself…all excited about my plans
I am buying the myth that I am in control
And I don’t need any other horizon but myself

It happens
Doesn’t it?
It happens
Because covetousness and greed are sneaky
And I am not always on guard

Jesus doesn’t give us any clear instructions in this particular passage
But leading up to today
The Good Samaritan…
Martha and Mary…
The Lord’s Prayer…
I see a stance
A stance of goodness and kindness
A stance of openness and listening
A stance of offering and invitation

Today’s Gospel
Invites us to imagine
And to wonder
How can we help one another to live into
The real abundant life that God calls us to?

How can we keep those less tangible
But far more powerful things front and center?
How can we keep focused on
The joy of a good conversation
The sense of purpose that comes from helping another
The warmth of a long, loving and steadfast relationship
The feeling of community that comes when we gather

How can we be on guard
So that we are not seduced by false abundance?

For one thing
We keep the conversation going
We name it when we see it
Both the real and the false
Especially the REAL
those real things
Maybe a list
A three minutes list at the beginning of each day
Just a few minutes to get the day started
with people and things in the proper perspective

·      My family
·      That one friend that stayed late to clean the dishes with me
·      The gift of faith
·      God’s beautiful creation right outside these doors
·      My sweet dog
·      Coffee
·      My sense of smell and taste
·      The opportunity to breathe deeply
·      Laughter
Etc….

And how about that stance
That big stretch
That physical stance that reminds us that real abundance cannot be grasped
It flows
It flows over us and through us
To the world and back again

True abundance
Gods abundance
We can count on that


Thanks be to God!



Sources
-Diane Bergant, Preaching the New Lectionary Year C, pages 316-321
-David Lose, "What Money Can and Can't Do", https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2668
-Sara Pagina, Luke, pages 197-202
-John Shea,  The Relentless Widow, Luke Year C, pages 215-219

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